Page 66 of Ties of Bargains

With athumpthat vibrated through the sand beneath him, two huge azure dragons landed before them. Before Harm could do more than scramble upright, a large, scaled tail lashed forward, knocking Val and the otherfeeënaside and curling around Harm’s waist.

He was hauled through the air, then plunked back to the sand behind the dragon. His legs buckled at the impact, and he would have fallen again if he hadn’t been held by the tail still wrapped around his torso. With the tail pinning him so thoroughly, he couldn’t even reach the sword stuffed in the magical pocket of his leather jerkin.

In a blink, the second dragon transformed into afeeënwoman with brown hair and blue eyes and wearing a blue woolen dress edged in white fur. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar, though Harm didn’t have much of a chance to wrack his brain to remember.

The dragon holding him gave a low growl, fire licking around his jaws. Val drew her sword, standing at the front of her cluster of mercenaries, all of them dropping into fighting stances as if they thought they could fight off two dragons. Although, Grutte’s massive broadsword looked big enough to whack the head off a dragon.

The femalefee—dragon?—stepped closer to him,placing her back to the others. She held out her hand to him, then uncurled her fingers to show him something small and red resting on her palm. “We’re here to rescue you. How are you bound? If it’s a captive binding, we can take off right now. If you’re blood-bound, things will get more complicated.”

“Uh, neither?” Harm stared at the little red flower she held. A wild fae primrose. Just like that flower the strange human man had given him at the faerie market.

These dragons were a part of the Primrose League. He could trust them.

If they didn’t flambé his wife and her friends first.

Harm hurriedly shoved the leather cuff up his arm to show the gold line. “I have a marriage binding. That’s my wife.”

At the same time, Val pointed her sword at the other dragon’s face and shouted, “Let my husband go!”

The dragon swung his huge head around, and his slitted eyes focused on Harm. When he spoke, his lips peeled back to reveal fangs nearly as long as Grutte’s sword. “Is that true?”

“Yes!” Harm held up his arm to show the other dragon the golden line from the marriage binding. “I was fully willing. As was she.”

When the dragon swung his head back to Val, she had stowed her sword in her pocket so that she, too, could shove the leather cuff out of the way to reveal the matching golden line around her wrist. She then drew the iron knife and held that up, pressing the flat of the blade to her forearm. “This is an iron knife. Clearly I’m immune.”

The dragon stretched his head forward, and Harm tensed as the dragon’s huge maw got far too close to Val. Yet Val remained unflinching as the dragon sniffed the blade in her hand.

With a puff of smoke into Val’s face, the dragon withdrew and shook his head as if he’d just snorted pepper. “Yes, that’s iron, all right.” The dragon released his tail’s grip on Harm.

Harm steadied himself and tugged at the now even more tattered remnants of his bloodstained shirt.

In a blur, the dragon shifted into afeeënmale with brown hair and blue eyes that matched the female dragon-fee. He flashed a grin that was only mildly less toothy. “Sorry about that. The Wild Fae Primrose sent us to rescue you.”

“I remember you now.” Harm waved between the two dragons. “You were at the Dragon Moot. Taran and Tora, right? You bargained for me.”

“Tried to bargain for you.” The female, Tora, grimaced and gave a flick of her hair.

“We didn’t succeed.” The male, Taran, crossed his arms. “So we tracked you to Warlord Zaya.”

“Then to the desert.” Tora took up the thread the moment Taran stopped for a breath. “We’ve been flying overhead for an hour now.”

“Trying to decide if we should follow through a rift.”

“But we didn’t know which rift would lead to the right Wild Hunt band.”

“Not that we couldn’t take on a Wild Hunt by ourselves.”

“But we didn’t want to miss you and risk that you’d be killed before we got there.”

“Quite convenient that you popped out right where we were patrolling.”

“Saved us a lot of trouble.”

Harm coughed to interrupt. “Pardon the question, but are the two of you twins?”

“Yes.” Tora smiled, flashing brilliantly white teeth. “How did you guess?”

“We are obvious about it.” Taran elbowed his sister.

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